According to multiple reports, 2015 Powerball winner Marie Holmes is being sued by her ex-fiancé, Lamarr “Hot Sauce” McDow.
Holmes, who won a $188 million jackpot, and McDow continuously make headlines for their relationship squabbles and her expenses that include tens of millions of dollars spent to help bail him out over the course of four arrests.
McDow has defended his former fiancée’s decisions in the past to repeatedly pay his bail. In 2016, he told The Daily Mail, “If I had that money then I would do the same for her. People are just jealous because of how much she won, and people want to see me locked in jail.” He added that Holmes “is standing by her man.”
Now, according to reports by North Carolina’s NBC affiliate WECT 6, McDow is claiming that because he was preparing to begin a seven-year prison sentence in 2016 for drug trafficking charges he was convicted of in 2014, he made Holmes the “agent” of his assets. As the lawsuit states, “Mr. McDow authorized Ms. Holmes to store, maintain, and protect his real and personal property during his incarceration.”
Due to McDow’s upgraded status in the relationship, things got complicated when the couple parted ways in 2017, after McDow learned Holmes was dating other people.
In the new lawsuit, he claims Holmes sold what Mc Dow believed to be his property, items she purchased for him while they were still a couple. McDow claims Holmes sold “a $250,000 modified Chevrolet Stingray, $100,000 worth of clothes and jewelry, and a $600,000 auto restoration business, along with other large purchases,” that may have belonged to him.
McDow is now suing because he feels Holmes was in the wrong for selling off gifts she gave him without his permission while he was locked up. The lawsuit further details this reasoning, saying, “Ms. Holmes’ unconditional obligation to act in the best interests of Mr. McDow didn’t stop because Ms. Holmes and Mr. McDow’s relationship ended.”
The situation is more complex because some of the gifts, like the car and business, are registered under Holmes’ name. McDow is seeking “compensation for the assets he claims were his” and “punitive damage.”
Holmes has two children with McDow, who isn’t due to be released from prison until 2023.
